US and foreign Olympic teams will carry their own air conditioning systems to the Paris Games in spite of the environmental strategy.

Although Olympic organisers have plans to reduce carbon emissions, the U.S. Olympic team and a few other national sports federations will provide air conditioning for their athletes during the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris. According to The Associated Press, organisers have pushed plans to chill rooms in the Athletes Village, which will accommodate more than 15,000 Olympians and sports officials during the Summer Games, using a system of cooling pipes beneath floors.

CEO of the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic organisation Sarah Hirshland stated on Friday that although the organisation would be providing AC units for American athletes competing in the Summer Games, the U.S. team respects efforts to address sustainability.
“The village rooms will have air conditioning,” Hirshland declared. “We greatly admire the efforts made by the Paris Organising Committee, especially their emphasis on sustainability. And I am aware that several doubts have been raised regarding that uniformity as well as the air conditioning.”

“As you can imagine, this is a period of time in which consistency and predictability is critical for Team USA’s performance,” Hirshland said. “In our conversations with athletes, this was a very high priority and something that the athletes felt was a critical component in their performance capability.”

According to The Washington Post, Germany, Australia, Italy, Canada, and Great Britain are among the other nations that intend to send air conditioners to the Paris Games. According to reports, Japan has also thought of sending units for its athletes. The environmental plan of the organisers is to maintain the temperature in the rooms between 23 and 26 degrees Celsius, or 73 and 79 degrees Fahrenheit, given that the typical high temperature in Paris on August 1 is 26 degrees Celsius, or 79 degrees Fahrenheit. Regarding the planning for the Olympics, Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo stated, “I want the Paris Games to be exemplary from an environmental point of view.”

The International Energy Agency reports that less than one in ten European homes have air conditioning, and even fewer homes in Paris have it. Furthermore, the agency reported that of the 1.6 billion air conditioning units in use worldwide in 2016, over half were in China (570 million) and the United States (375 million), with the European Union having about 100 million units. Furthermore, according to Newsweek, France had to spend $1.5 billion cleaning the Seine River in order to host aquatic events at the Summer Games because the river is still too dirty to support the sports.